ks. "My object," he said recently, "has been to turn out consistent
rather than wonderful kickers. As a player I was early impressed with
the value of kicking, not only in a general way but also in a particular
way, such as the punt in an offensive way. For more than twenty-five
years I have talked it up. For a long time I talked it to deaf ears,
especially at Yale. I talked it when I coached at West Point for ten
years and was generally set down as a harmless crank on the subject, but
I have lived to see the time when every one agrees on the great value of
this offensive kick.

"When I entered Yale I was an absolute greenhorn, but the greenhorn had
a chance then, for he was able to play in actual scrimmage every day;
now the squads are so big that opportunities for playing the game for
long daily periods are entirely wanting.

"To-day it is a case of a heap big talk, a coach for every position,
more talk, lots of system, blackboard exercises and mighty little actual
play.

"I have often wondered if things were not being overdone as far as
coaching goes in the preparatory schools at the present time. The
superabundance of coaches and the demand for victory combine to force
the boy.

"If there is any forcing to do, the college is the place for it, when
the boy is older and better able to stand the strain. In recent years I
have seen not a few brokendown boys enter college. Boys are coming to
college now who needs must be told everything, and if there is not a
large body of coaches about to tell them, they mutiny. They seem to
forget, or not to know, that most is up to the man himself.

"When a boy comes to college with the idea that all that is necessary is
for him to be told, constantly told how to do this and that, and he will
deliver in the last ditch, I cannot help thinking that something is
wrong.

"I have in mind right now a player in the line, who came to college
after four years of school football. Ever since his entry he has
complained that no one has told him anything. Now this particular player
spends ten months of each year loafing, and expects in his two months of
football to do a man's job in a big game.

"No amount of blackboard and other talk is going to make a player do a
man's job and whip his opponent. No man can play a tackle job properly
if he does not realize the kind of a proposition he is up against twelve
months in the year and act accordingly. He has got to do his own
thinking, and see